How Community Radios Help Improve Gender Parity In Odisha

24-Oct-2017

Community radio stations have created a positive impact in rural communities where girls are still the ignored population.

As news of rampant female feticide in the Nayagarh district of Odisha broke in July 2017, it shocked Usha Patnaik, a social activist and president of Gania Unnayan Committee, a non-profit organization, as it did the rest of India.

Working for more than two decades on issues such as trafficking of girls and women, child marriage and gender-based discrimination, the news made her wonder about the very existence of females in society. "Being a female, I was scared," she told VillageSquare.in. "How can a society imagine its future by eliminating a sex selectively at the fetal stage?"

However, 10 community radio stations are working in Odisha on changing the mindset of the people, to enable a better environment for the safety of girl children and women.

Endangered sex

Indicating decline in the sex ratio, female population in Nayagarh district has come down from 938 per 1,000 males in 2001 to 915 in 2011, as per the 2011 census report. More worrying is the sex ratio at birth during the last five years — the population of girl babies is 725 for every 1,000 male babies born, as per the National Family Health Survey 2015-16 (NFHS4). As per the 2001 and 2011 censuses, the sex ratio of children below six years in Nayagarh dropped from 904 to 855.

Apart from declining sex ratio, Nayagarh district has remained the epicentre of trafficking of girls under the guise of marriage since the 1990s. According to NFHS4, it is the sixth district of Odisha with the high prevalence of child marriage. In the district, 31.3 % of women between 20 and 24 years of age got married before the age of 18.